On the campaign trail: Swing states and the dirty Souf'

Oh man what a week. I get around.

Kicked off the week with a trip to NC for meetings and my annual review. Good times, I gave em hell. Ladies, if you ever have to have a salary review, do it while you have your period. My inner rage gave me the edge I needed to stick to my guns. I negotiated for every woman! Hear me roar! n shit. Back home weds night, I had to handle missed NSI business Thursday and then out to Ohio (OHIO!), as of 5pm Thursday.

Friday = meetingsmeetingsmeetings. But that's how I roll, and so I got it done. In the good/bad news sweepstakes I got a call Friday afternoon that I didn't have to work at the health fair as planned on Saturday, so I got clearance from my boss to head home Friday night. I wasn't able to get a flight out so I had to cool my heels one last night in Cinci (which sucks as a single traveler. two thumbs down) However, my helpful United air agent told me if I could get to the airport first thing, there looked to be room on a 6:30 am flight which would get me back to Baltimore around noon. I could handle that.

After waiting 2 hours for a pizza man who never came, and not really sleeping because I was hungry, sad and homesick I woke up at 3am to head to la aeropuerto de locale Cincinnati to try to get standby for an earlier flight and thankfully made it, then had a cool little neon experience in Chicago.

I totally stole this picture from this site. It's the amazing picture that was in my head that I couldn't capture with my cameraphone, or my digital camera (which kind of sucks in low light). I was also a little afraid I might get tackled by security if I got caught taking pictures. What with security being at level ORANGE now these days.

O'Hare airport, hallway between terminals B and C

It was actually one of the nicer moments of my trip, going through this hallway. My first flight had landed in O'Hare at 6:30 local time, after having taken off from Ohio at 6:30 local time. That took me a few minutes to process when I first woke up. I had nodded off on the plane so I was groggy and pretty out of it, wandering around O'Hare half asleep looking for something yummy and caffeinated. It was the layover before my final flight home, and I was totally ambling because I had 3 hours to kill. It was like being in the movie Lost in Translation/Times square/Boohbah land. While tripping. It must be said, there is some classic people watching in airports. Damn if I didn't ride the moving sidewalk for 20 minutes under these lights, trying to deal with the fact that I was in an airport at 630 am with no dinner or breakfast in the belly.

The good thing about big airports is they have everything you want, and if you're going to be held captive somewhere it may as well be somewhere that you can get any combination of completely asynchronous foods at pretty much any hour. So I cruised around and had a little travel brekkie of a Starbucks white chocolate mocha and a spinach pizza, did a little shopping at the Wilson's leather store, took a 45 minute walk to stretch 'em out and then made the standby list for the next flight to Baltimore.

Home sweet home, it feels so right.

Nothing lasts forever

However, if you can keep your wits about you and make the most of the situation, sometimes you can parlay bad luck into free sh*t. Case in point:

I was kicking in the backyard, taking out the rest of my frustrations on the "tree" when I noticed yet another Huey circling my house. Figuring it was just another day in the life of B'more, I cranked my iPod and went back to work. Imagine my surprise when the next time I looked up there was a 200lb bald guy scaling down a rope ladder and coming right for me.

I'm no dummy. I've done things I'm not proud of. I've also done things other people might want to pay me back for, so I took off running but in my haste I stepped on the rake a la Wiley E Coyote and knocked myself right back into yesterday. Or at least back into the arms of the giant goon coming at me (and not in the good way). Big, bald and ugly with legs like tree trunks and a little bit of crazy eye: there's only one group I know who hires people like that, and if they were looking for me I was probably in trouble. It's a bitch when the past catches up with you.

The man had some questions, and he began shouting them in a less than friendly way. He also used what I would consider excessive profanity, and from me that's saying something. Seems somewhere some Indian guy disappeared and due to a certain number of "angry letters" and "belligerent voicemails" I was the #1 suspect. The "stereotypical" "woman scorned" and all that crap. typical. I tried explaining to the big fella that just because I had a long and dirty history with the missing party, didn't mean I had at some point reached my limit, gotten tired of him ducking my calls, been fed up with having been used and abused and tied the party in question to a tree somewhere, because I just wanted him to listen to me for once! I tried to tell him all that but he just wasn't buying.

We went back and forth for a while, him yelling "where's Veejay", me denying any knowledge and him not believing me. Cue finger twisting and a slap upside the head courtesy of McGilla Gorilla, rinse, and repeat.

Then he broke out the big guns and said that the big boss was tired of doing all the work and they needed their squirrel back. They'd paid good money for his fake papers and they weren't about to let it all go to waste because someone couldn't keep it in their pants. I was about to ask indignantly if he was referring to me when the big louse got quiet. He grabbed the loppers I had been working with and started telling me about how he sometimes moonlighted for the government. Doh. I began to sweat a little and then he had to bring the dog into it. He said if I didn't talk that he'd give us both "nail trimmings" and since he wasn't trained in Manicures things could get messy. Looking over at the dog, I noticed that crap, her nails really did need to be cut, and I thought maybe I'd go a few rounds with him and try to get someone else to do it since the last time I tried she kicked me where the sun don't shine, and I quit, hence their current obscene length. Then I remembered how sulky she got after I posted the pictures of her with the hairless ass after her last surgery and boycotted me for a week. I also remembered he was talking about cutting my nails as well, and since I don't have any, I didn't want to guess what he might cut off instead. After doing some quick mental math I asked him what was in it for me if I did tell him anything, not that I for sure knew what he wanted to hear.

He responded that I'd get to keep my limbs and that he wouldn't put on a little Boobah symphony while relieving me of extra opposable digits, which was good enough for me. I sang like Mariah Carey in Butterfly. Loud, off key and with dangerously little point but in the end he got the info he needed. He patted me on the head for a job well done and got up to leave. He whispered that it was probably best that I kept this little visit between us, and I told him that cost extra. He smirked, signaled for the copter to circle back and disappeared up the rope ladder. I was standing there trying to explain to my neighbor that sometimes that's how I receive guests when a sealed brown package came falling out of nowhere. figuring if it was something bad it would have exploded on impact I ran over to check it out.

Scrawled across the top was 'something extra' and inside was a free T Shirt and some cards. Score! That will certainly buy my silence, and they can have Veejay, he cries too much for my tastes anyway.

thanks cerebral itch!!

A star is born

Welcome Nobutaka Richard Ashihara! I know exactly what drives your mom nuts, I can't wait to teach you everything I know.

Congrats to Becky and Ich. I know the labor was so hard for Ich, he had to stay awake ALL NIGHT the poor guy!

Becky, you're my hero. That head is no joke!

BONSAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or, nesting on steroids. Take your pick... either way, it's been kind of a long crazy week around here. Lots of 6am meetings with the UK team, so lots of 530 wake ups. Ill. and Monday was just a "bend over and take it in the scapegoat" day, chock full of meetings but sadly devoid of any results. You know the type. It didn't help that I'd woken up at 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep. morale was at an all time low.

Anyhoo, I hadn't seen much improvement in my attitude over the course of the week, but I did notice that I'd become obsessed with dusting, cleaning, moving shit around, etc. And that I'm like a walking sebaceous gland AGAIN even though I'm 30 and there should be *some* perk to adulthood, no? Aah yes, the ugly face of PMS back in town and ready to play. I'm really (not really) looking forward to next week, when I'm on the road all over the map for 6 days straight of work and meetings, including a health fair in Ohio that I'm working next Saturday. Usually playing Dr is one of my favorite games, but this health fair is going to be for old diabetics. = not sexy.

So anyhow, the week sort of went Monday, very angry, Tuesday very moody/cleany. Weds was an amalgam of both which is to say I was in that most delightful of phases "the rage nesting phase" Looking around the house for an outlet I discovered there was nothing that needed demolishing. Unfortunate. Looking outside however, I was struck with inspiration.
The hedges. Oh, the hedges. The hedges in front of my house are huge and unruly and I've never been overly fond of them. There's no flowers, there's nothing about them I can eat. They just don't give a lot back to the community you know?

Sometimes I worry when I come home late at night that someone could be hiding on my porch waiting to kidnap me and I wouldn't see them because the hedges would hide them. The hedges also make it difficult to grow anything in my tiny little bricked off front garden plot thing because they hang right over and block the sun so all that grows is straggly little weed things. I decided the hedges had to go. And the more I thought about it, the better of an idea it seemed. F*ck the hedges!

Exhibit A. There could totally be a mugger on my porch! How gross.

So I consulted my bonsai guru to inquire about the necessary tools for the job: loppers. (yay! I knew I needed some of those!) Then with the parting words "have fun with your bush" I was off. I hopped in the silver bullet and sped up to Ayd's Hardware, which I favor because of their nifty old time paintjob and acquired the loppers. I came home, mixed myself a stiff drink and practiced smiling while saying "This will totally grow back" (more advice from the guru). It took me a while to get it down convincingly, which I needed to do because I know myself and I get a little enthusiastic with the loppers. I was really going to need to work with the bush on this one and win it over, because I was about to do something drastic.

So: Armed with my drink, my loppers, the ipod and a huge fake smile I headed out and got down to it. and how!

I really only intended to take a little off the bottom and make the whole thing manageable. But I was doing so good I just couldn't stop, and so I kept on. At some point, I had the right amount of greenery removed but due to a temper tantrum I had about 2 mos ago using the neighbors loppers, there were some bare spots in the middle of what turned out to be bush 2 (who knew?!) I hemmed, I hawed, I decided one bush is enough for me and it was off with bush 2.

In the end, the whole thing was very therapeutic (for me, I'm still not sure the bush is 100% with me) The woman who lives next door to me on the bush side seems to have mixed feelings on the matter -she apparently had some fondness for my ample bush- but this isn't about her so I just smiled through her pain, and pointed to my headphones, miming "I can't hear you".

If I could go back, I think the only thing I might have done differently would be to cut it from the top some to a lower height and then bonsai the unbonsai-able. But as I told the bush "this will totally all grow back" and now I have something to look forward to for the spring. :0)


So then it was onto the backyard for more therapy/pruning, and what happened there was just out of hand. Stay tuned, that's just a whole other post.

the great mystery solved...

no, not who built the pyramids. "whats been eating my tomatoes"

so, i got mad at the tomatoes because they got bugs so i stopped paying them attention and wrote them off. then i started noticing while taking care of the plants i still like that something was chewing up the tomatoes. that i don't want them is not the point. they're mine.

so: today the dog is being awfully quiet in the yard so i go out and who do you think is shoulder deep in the garden EATING EVERY LAST TOMATO:


Mystery solved: the upshot is she smells fantastic, as she had to go through the rosemary to get to the last bit. i keep smelling her face, i think she is seriously freaked out.

The hate is strong in me

I've spent the last 4 hours locked in a server room hiding from everyone because I am a true sour grape. The caffeine buzz came and went and nothing changed. I'm still chock full of hate...why does my life not involve valium filled hours by my own private pool ?

I am remotely cheered up by the thought of the private time I will share with my shuffle when I get home today. We might go to the gym, we might go for a bike ride, or maybe we'll do something I don't even know about. Whatever it is doesn't matter, I know it will be fun because it's shuffle and me! I love shuffle. Shiny little green shuffle....like a valium, only green not blue!

Oh Shuffle, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Of course we're taking proper precautions against the sicko holding my coffee pot hostage.

The saddest monkey in the zoo

Woah. Today I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. At 2am. Which makes me one angry cookie.

The first work related email I sent out started with "I should stick my foot up your ass' . Luckily the co-worker to whom this was directed is a friend and deserves a foot up his ass so I'm clear, but I'm not sure I wouldn't have done it anyway. I just don't have any cheer left in the tank, and neither caffeine nor cheese can prop me up- you know its bad when it can't be fixed by caffeine, fat or chocolate.

And now I'm off to my monday madness meetings extravaganza, where I'm going to take it in the neck because we've discovered a memory leak in our software.

doh!

However, I did have a fantastic weekend and as soon as I can drag myself out of the depths of self pity I shall relate the tale. it involves my new boyfriend, the green iPod shuffle. We are totally in love!

Hostage situation

I WILL FIND YOU!

We are now at DEFCON 4 or whatever it's called when security is high.

All security measures are in place, I even have copters over the house. I've been compromised, and one of my loved ones is paying the price!

What kind of sick animal does this?! (and is it considered LOLHostage ?)

Clarification

At no point in the weekend was I in the Mountain time zone. Not once.

I was nowhere near the VMAs.

Just saying.

This is what sad looks like.

Oh For fucks sake! Left my new coffee maker in Boston...



My poor assymetrical heart is busted.

Chloe says....

Graphical interfaces to database management are for pussies!

the list of people/corporations who can kiss my ass

Windows
Dell
BIOS revisions with critical power management features that noone tells you about
Jiffy Lube
Ichiro's wasted neighbor
Ichiro's dirty neighbors

the mailman
UPS


More later.

This is what happy looks like.

aaaah. Many of you may not be aware of the ongoing saga that had become my morning cup of coffee. That's probably because without the morning cup of coffee I don't have the strength to relate the saga. It was truly a vicious circle, one of those ironic little twists life just throws at you, ostensibly to test your will and see what you're made of. Now I know how all of those poor people on the Titanic felt. Except that I have coffee now and they mostly drowned, but whatever. I know how discouraged they probably felt when they heard that first iceberg hit.

Anyhow, the troubles with my french press (the preferred brewing method of any control freak worth her salt) culminated last week when the pyrex base bit developed a hairline fracture running it's length and I had to pronounce it unfit for further duty. It was a sad moment and the requisite moment of silence was observed. You served me well old friend.

Since then, coffee making has been a veritable lottery of results, coming from a mish mash of techniques I've tried to hold me over while I begin The Quest For the New French Press. (purchases in my life are either impulse buys or painfully fretted over for ages, trying to find just the right "one"; it has to be the perfect balance of aesthetically pleasing, economical, functional and interesting- a tough job for any inanimate object but I have lofty standards and I'm worth it) So morning coffee had taken on quite a painful twist as of late and become an entire production. I don't have a coffee machine so I couldn't just suck it up and resort to that while I waited. I do have a travel french press mug, but it's metal and after a couple of days I just wasn't having it. It doesn't taste the same, or I'm neurotic and think it doesn't or whatever. I think the size of the mug is different than my regular press so my normal amounts of plastic cow and sugar were off and coffee is clearly a question of ratios (as are so many other things) But the important thing was that I didn't prefer it and so I had to find another way.

Then I thought maybe the next best thing I could do would be to sort of "make" a "kind of" french press, with some screen I had lying around but this too turned out to be too much in the mornings, and plus I wasn't sure if the screen from windows is safe for foodstuffs. And noone I know knew the answer to that. I decided not to chance it. What I finally settled on as an interim measure was (*cough* going up the street to the coffee shop *cough*) to mix grounds and and water in one mug, put cream powder and sugar in the drinking mug and use my meat spatter shield as a strainer to strain coffee directly into drinking mug. Et Voila! It worked to be sure but cleanup left a little to be desired. Why are meat screens so damn hard to clean?! Uncool.

So anyhow, I am happy to report that the search has come to an end. I'm up in Boston touching base with all my homies this week and after weaseling a free dinner out of my dad we decided to hit up the local Starbucks for coffee and in my wandering around the shop to kill time while I waited for them to get my stuff ready I tripped over this little gem for the bargain price of $14.95 (which is cheaper than the plastic ones that I've seen everywhere and shunned because I don't drink coffee out of plastic):

Aesthetically pleasing?: check (I like the stainless look but oooh, copper)
Interesting?: check (because I am perhaps that lame)
functional?: check
economical?: CHECK

and she scores!!!!!

I stole this pic from ebay, where the seller is asking 50 bucks for this. Riotous, I MUST track whether he sells it.

And so now here I sit, fresh mug o joe made just the way I like it in hand. And as you see, I have my strength back, and with it the ability to babble on again. I can hear you weeping with joy from here.

Twinks in the news

I have to, *MUST* comment on this Larry Craig business. My first love Vijay (ok fine it's Veejay but I don't like it and as soon as I get his H1 visa in my hand he's changing the spelling and a couple other of his habits I'm not crazy about) and those other crazy kids over at cerebral itch are banding together to offer him some support but I have to ask who the man thought he was kidding? He's gayer than Clay Aiken in a gold lame' dress and still he refuses to acknowledge!

Don't lie to us cracker! Look at you! THE JIG IS UP!


It's just the principle of the thing at this point. Go send him a card to let him know that you know. Then he'll know you know he knows you know and shit. There is no better way to spend your dollar today.